Elamite halmarriš ~ vieux-perse dida- est-elle vraiment une forteresse ? (I)

Elamite 'halmarrish' since the very early phases of Achaemenid philology has been the object of a particular interest, because, in addition to its repeated occurrences in Darius' Bisotun inscriptions, it appears as a key word in one of the oldest inscriptions in Persepolis, possibly pointing to the same building of the structure that we call the Terrace (= halmarrish in Elamite and dida- in Old Persian). By means of a close examination of all passages in which the term occurs in the four (including Aramaic) languages of Achaemenid epigraphy, the article demonstrates that the term (of which some scholars suspect an Iranian etymology, some others an Elamite one) may have denoted fortified complexes of a mixed agricultural-military character (excursuses discuss the etymology of Persian dez ‘wall’ and Aramaic birta ‘manor’).